The peloton left Colunga without Simon Clarke (Cannondale-Drapac) and Silvio Herklotz (Bora Argon 18). Rapidly, another Cannondale-Drapac rider, Patrick Bevin, was forced to call it quits as well with a hand injury. After an hour and a swift 49.8 kph average speed, a group of 23 riders emerged: Ben Hermans (BMC), Martijn Keizer (Lotto NL-Jumbo), Davide Malacarne (Astana), Koen De Kort and Johannes Frölingher (Giant-Alpecin), Kiel Reijnen (Trek-Segafredo), Jan Bakelants and Axel Domont (AG2R-La Mondiale), Tiago Machado and Jhonatan Restrepo (Katusha), Sander Armée (Lotto-Soudal), Pieter Serry and Zdenek Stybar (Etixx-Quick Step), Pierre Rolland (Cannondale-Drapac), Jacques Janse van Rensburg and Merhawi Kudus (Dimension Data), Larry Warbasse (IAM Cycling), Kristijan Durasek and Ilia Koshevoy (Lampre - Merida), Cesare Benedetti and Christoph Pfingsten (Bora-Argon18), David Arroyo and Angel Madrazo (Caja Rural - Seguros RGA). Some 35 kilometers further down the road at the feed zone, their lead had gone over five minutes. But Alberto Contador's Tinkoff team-mates took the chase in their own hands and cut the gap down to three minutes with 70 km to go as Jose Gonçalves (Caja Rural) and Laurent Pichon (FDJ) called it quits.
The gap had settled at around two minutes when Stybar took the intermediate sprint of the day at Suances (Km 122). Thirty kilometers from the line, the lead of the 23 had melted down to the minute. And while Janse van Rensburg and Madrazo tried to move on their own, the fate of the breakaway was sealed. At the foot of the climb, the peloton was on its heels.
The stage was then reduced to a 6-km uphill race with Quintana's Movistar leading the pack. Up front, Hermans and Bakelants were the last men standing but they were reeled in one after the other before and after the 3-km mark. With 1.7 km to go, Esteban Chaves (Orica-BikeExchange) launched the hostilities, but while Leopold König worked to lead Froome out, it was Quintana who attacked at the 700 metres mark. The Briton responded 100 metres further up and while they both passed Chaves, the two strong men in this Vuelta declared a ceasefire until the final stretch, when Froome logically outpowered Quintana to take the stage honours.
